ABSOLUTION - A Dark Bad Boy Romance Novel Page 2

  “I miss you…” she said and started sobbing. A tear rolled off and sunk into the toast. It will sound mad to you, perhaps, but the sight of that infuriated me. When she got emotional like this, there was nothing to do but keep calm until it passed. Not all of us can afford to just lose it like that. I started thinking about work.

  “Well, I’m right here now with you, sharing this lovely breakfast with you, and you’re choosing to use this time crying, and making everything unpleasant.”

  “But--”

  “You know how unbelievably busy we’ve been at Black Rock, how hard it’s been for me, and instead of taking this moment to actually connect with me, to support me, you’re choosing to bitch at me about how we don’t connect. Have I understood?”

  “I’m not bitching…” she snuffled.

  Some blondes look good once you’ve roughed them up a bit. In my line of work, believe me, every kind of blonde you can imagine passes through, and some of them were born for that look: primped and preened to a high sheen …and then promptly roughed up a little. ‘Morning after hair’. Some women look amazing that way. Natasha is not one of those women.

  “Then what? What more do you want me to fucking do?” I said, gesturing around at the room. I was there. I was fucking there, wasn’t I? There was cut crystal on the table, silver plated dining ware, expensive crockery she ordered from Milan …this single room in our house alone was bigger than most people’s entire homes in this city.

  “I want you…” she said.

  I laughed. She loved being melodramatic like this. Present an argument when you talk to me. Lay out your case, substantiate your claim and make a fucking argument, is that so hard? It always baffled me that she still thought that whining and acting pathetic like this was an effective way to manipulate me.

  “I want to have …” she said and, unbelievably, I watched another tear disappear into the hot toast. Another one. I thought about work. “I want to have …sex with you. We haven’t in so long.”

  I nearly laughed out loud. It might sound strange, but to look at her you wouldn’t think she’d have any problem saying any number of filthy words. White-blonde hair, bee-stung lips. She looked as though saying filthy words might well be her line of work, if you catch my drift.

  I mean, it was cute. She was dead cute, don’t get me wrong. I know many men envy me to death that I have a woman that looks like she does on my arm. But turns out crazy is expensive, and only idiots like myself can afford the very best.

  “Well, that’s nice dear, and I want to never have to pay tax again. What’s your point?”

  Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh.

  “Natasha, I didn’t mean that. Just …we’ve spoken about this. If you had any idea of how stressed I am right now, if you really knew what I was going through.”

  “Just fuck me now. On the table,” she said. She had lifted her gaze and was staring straight at me. For a moment, she looked like the same playful girl I had met years ago, the little minx who wore all the wrong things to the races and asked the waiters inappropriate questions about their families and giggled in fancy churches and called imported Seltzer water ‘pop’. There was a distant pang in my gut to see her eyes so naked like that.

  But it was also embarrassing. She was better than this sloppy display of emotion. I raised my eyebrow at her.

  “You have a full seventeen minutes till you have to leave,” she said and started clearing away a place between the crystal and the tiny grapefruit bowls. “And I only need ten.” She smiled up at me and I laughed.

  “Darling, that’s …that’s really cute and all, but …I’ve just showered.”

  “That’s fine, I’m only interested in a very small part of you,” she said and was instantly clamoring over the table towards me.

  “Small?”

  I kissed her but struggled to deflect her greedy little hands rushing all over me. She always knew how to make me laugh. To make me smile. But I couldn’t. Not now. I wasn’t …ready. My head was all in the wrong place, for one, and I was already dressed and it just wasn’t the most appropriate choice. She was in my lap now, hands linked round my neck and kissing me all over.

  “You’re crazy, Mrs. Beckford.”

  “Don’t call me that!” she said and playfully slapped my arm. I was hard. She stared down at my crotch with glee and was immediately grinding on my lap, her disheveled hair flying everywhere.

  Nobody could say she wasn’t an absolutely beautiful woman. But I was constantly amazed at how she could spend so much money and only look cheaper for it. She had colored over her natural blonde hair and now had a brassy looking porn-star cascade that always seemed slightly messed up. Underneath the makeup and the nails and the gaudy jewelry, she was actually rather elegant. But that was only when you looked carefully – on the surface, she was gloriously and ridiculously overdone.

  In hindsight, I guess I had wanted to pluck her out of her poverty and misery and polish her up. My Cinderella project. But there’s no polite way to say it: she had abysmal taste. She looked trashy, to say it impolitely. It was adorable, most of the time.

  But it certainly wasn’t adorable now. I’m not sure why but I was instantly irritated with her, and twisted my head to the side to evade her sloppy kisses. It was just too much. She was too much. I laughed nervously and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “I have to go to work now,” I said slowly and deliberately. I knew she hated when I spoke to her like a child. But then did she have to act like such a fucking child all the time? She glanced at the clock.

  “No you don’t. You have plenty of time.”

  I pushed her off and stood, dusting crumbs off my suit that weren’t there and straightening a collar that was, I admit, already straight. She always looked even more bedraggled after she was rejected. Her little leopard skin robe gaped at the front and gave generous glimpses of her round breasts in beaded lingerie underneath. Fucking beaded lingerie. A real slut bra. A bra you wore for no good reason. I felt a rush of anger at thinking how much I had paid for it.

  I know. I’m an asshole.

  In case you think I’m one of those sad, emotionally stunted men, think again. Just because I own and manage a disgustingly successful hedge fund, it doesn’t mean I lack all the ‘soft skills’. I just know I don’t have to use them, if I don’t want to. Wealth exempts you, and the first thing it pays for is the privilege of not giving a shit about what others think. Or feel.

  Oh, make no mistake, I have nuanced, complex shades to my inner emotional world …but I have enough self-control and personal mastery not to let it all hang out and embarrass myself.

  “Close your robe, it’s hanging open,” I said to her, gesturing to her tits like they bored me. I am an asshole. Yes, I wanted to make her feel like shit. No, I’m not really sure why.

  Her lower lip quivered and anger flashed over her face. She looked down at herself and then tore off the robe, flinging it aside. When I had first met her, she was stitching cheap sequins onto the neckline of a flimsy thrift store blouse, trying to bluff her way into parties she didn’t belong at. Now, she threw the things I gave her on the ground, bored with them the second she had them. Bitch.

  She stared daggers at me.

  “There! Problem solved,” she spat.

  “Natasha,” I said, calm, “you’re raising your voice.”

  “So fucking what? I’ll raise it I want to,” she said, and flung herself down at the breakfast table again, deliberately displaying herself. On another day, and in another mood, I might have shown her just exactly what happens to women who talk like this to me. She was half my weight and perpetually in heels. I would fuck the daylights out of her if she so much as opened that little mouth at me again. But not today. Today, I had had enough.

  “I’m going to work, Natasha. You can stay here and prance around in your panties if you like, but some of us have work to do.”

  I could almost see the heat coming off her.

  “You know what? You’re a
coward, Todd.” She said it as though she had just solved the puzzle and found something that would truly hurt me. If she only knew how much more she’d have to do to even match the punishment I put up with every day.

  “This isn’t a daytime soap, Natasha.”

  “Nobody said it was. You’re a coward because you can’t even face your wife. I’m your wife. I need sex, Todd. There, I said it. You’ll make me beg, because you’re so fucking power hungry, but there, let’s put it out in the open, I need sex.”

  She was crying. I looked down with disinterest at the diamonds nestled between her breasts. At the ridiculous gold and pink beads on her bra.

  “I’m sure you have everything you need,” I said, mockingly. She might be fucking other men. Probably. I didn’t care. But I did want her to think I cared. Let some other guy deal with her shit for a while. Fuck, I’d pay him. She looked pretty defeated.

  “You’re not a real man,” she said and sniffled hard, like a big baby.

  I laughed out loud.

  “Natasha, that shit might have worked on your redneck exes but you’ll have to be a little more sophisticated than that. Try again” I said.

  Her face hardened into a scowl.

  “At least my redneck exes had the balls to actually fuck me once in a while,” she said.

  “Well, I can tell you this, Natasha. You actually have succeeded in insulting me after all. I’m hurt that the best you can muster is childish crap like that,” I said, and bent to examine my reflection in the silver tea pot.

  God, she looked miserable. We always fought like this. Cold and nasty and quick. It always got so nasty, so quick. I couldn’t help myself, once I got started. It was sick, I know, but fuck. Could she just dress nicely for breakfast? We see each other in the mornings like this so rarely, and she can’t even comb her fucking hair?

  She pouted and looked down at the breakfast spread in front of her, then, just like a cat, she pushed her coffee cup off and it went spilling to the ground, sending an ugly brown splatter onto the white carpet beneath. The cup wobbled and rolled on the floor a little and she looked down at it listlessly. It was pathetic.

  “Natasha, darling, please…” I leaned towards her. I’m an asshole, I know. I don’t know why we always did this to one another. She raised tearful eyes up to me and searched my face.

  “Natty, just …I’m so busy at work. I need you to not push me, for fuck’s sake. We can spend some time together soon, on the weekend maybe. Ok? We can go on vacation or something. I’m sorry.” My voice was tender. Underneath all the glitter and the polish, she was still my little Natty.

  “Call in at work and tell them you’re not coming in today. Just today. Stay here with me.” She pawed at me a little. My heart broke.

  “You know I can’t,” I said.

  She sniffed and stared down at the coffee cup.

  “I’ll send in someone to clean that up. Natty? I’m sorry Natty. Do you need anything? Before I go?”

  She scoffed quietly under her breath.

  “Ok, I’m off now,” I said and went for the door. She looked so sad and crumpled in her chair. And it was my stupid fucking fault. God must have been having a laugh at my expense. It just goes to show: you can be wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams, successful, fit, young and devoted – but you’re never immune from hurting a woman, somehow. No matter what, they’re mad, and it’s your fault. When I finally figure that fucking mystery out, I can sell it and be a rich man for sure.

  “Don’t forget that dinner we have tonight,” I said, on my way out. “Wear that black dress I bought you. It’ll be a classy affair, so be pretty but no need to go over the top,” I said, lingering perhaps a bit too much on ‘classy’. She knew what I was trying to get at. She didn’t look up at me and so I left, closing the door on her. Sealing that part of my life off. The door clicked and I exhaled in the quiet of the hall.

  I walked down the corridors and imagined I could hear her crying. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, ladies and gentlemen. I know you might think this is all fucked up. It is fucked up. But I loved her. If I couldn’t make her happy, then I guess I was stuck with making her miserable, right? At least it was me making her miserable. Fuck, it didn’t make a lot of sense, I know. I’m nothing if not a sensible man but Natasha just …she always knew how to push my buttons.

  Chapter Three - Natasha

  He won that argument. In a way, he always wins.

  One of my ‘redneck exes’ had a theory about relationships: the one who cares the least is the one who has the most power. That boy was human scum, make no mistake, but he was 100% correct about that. Todd always won because he always played the cool and calm card, then just leaned back and waited for you to lose your mind being too ‘emotional’.

  But I won in my own way. I won at a game he didn’t even know we were playing yet. I sat at our breakfast table and felt the cum of another man trickle slowly out of me and onto the fancy damask upholstered chair my wealthy husband had paid for.

  While he smirked and felt so pleased at manipulating me, at hurting me, I sat in silence, winning. Focusing on how I could still feel the body of the man who had screwed me late last night. I had stumbled home at 1 or 2, fantasizing about how he’d be stewing and fuming and waiting in bed, demanding to know where I’d been. Of course, he hadn’t come home yet himself. Just like my ex said!

  But one day he would see. He’d discover that all the while he had been denying me, mocking me, belittling my hunger for him …all that time I had been getting it elsewhere! I was no fool. I was young, and still pretty hot. Most men would give their left arm to bed me. Maybe that’s why I chose the worst, dirtiest, nastiest men I could find – at least they were fucking grateful, right?

  I kicked the coffee cup with my foot. Maybe I’d just leave the stain there. Why not? Barely anybody ever came into this bedroom anyway. I walked over to my walk in closet, turned the light on and stood amongst all my clothing.

  Shoes were to the far end. Dresses on the left, on fancy scented cedar wood hangers. A plush pink ottoman stood in the center, from when I still had dreams of ‘decorating’ the house how I liked it. Todd had laughed and told me not to quit my day job and just to leave it the interior designers. The joke, of course, was that I didn’t have a day job. I had put my foot down and told him I would decorate my closet however the hell I wanted to.

  I ran my fingers along the dresses, like a big, soft xylophone. Ball gowns and cocktail dresses and slinky clubbing numbers and little rompers for yachting and tasteful beach dresses. Exotic silks, edgy black and silver gowns designers had gifted me, pastel floral creations for client weddings... And then on a hanger in full view was the ‘classy’ black dress he had picked out for me. It was strapless and floor length, in a weird inky velvet. A pair of opera length gloves were folded in a box beneath them.

  I didn’t even have to try it on to know it would be boring. Or, excuse me, ‘elegant’. No color. No shape. Well, I wouldn’t wear it. I looked at myself in the mirror. Whipped out the tape measure and wound it around my waist. Still 24 inches. I posed in the mirror, trying out my different angles. My breasts were still pert and poking out curiously from off my chest. My stomach was still flat and shapely.

  What to wear? It would have to be pink. It would always have to be pink. I spun around and grabbed a dress off the rack – one I had bought and never found the occasion for. But as I held it out in front of me and twirled it a little, I realized: now was the occasion. It would be the perfect ‘fuck you’ dress.

  I stepped into it and wriggled the fabric up my bare body, still wearing my L’Agent Provocateur crystal encrusted bodice. It was an art piece, and I wasn’t about to take it off now. In fact, I liked that the straps poked out a little. The dress was a little trashy, some would say, but I could pull it off. Pepto-Bismol pink, ruched along the sides. Tight. A slashed hem and bare shoulders, with a burst of equally pink feathers at the bust, like a built in boa. It was the kind of thing a drag queen wou
ld wear. On me, though …well, let’s say I felt like Jessica Rabbit’s sluttier younger sister.

  With that thought I grabbed the black gloves and put those on too, slinking them up almost to my armpits. Perfect. I rummaged around in my jewelry drawer and pulled out a great big honking ruby bracelet and put that over one of the gloves. Then, a tiara. Just a small one; I didn’t want to go over the top.

  I checked my reflection in the mirror. I was beautiful. More importantly, I was myself. Black just wasn’t my color. Rather, I now looked like an eccentric billionaire’s wife. A naughty princess who’s gone too far playing dress up. An aristocratic woman, but after a long night of drinking. It was fucking perfect.

  I flopped down onto the floor, crossed my legs and opened a hidden drawer underneath the jewelry. I lifted out a small wooden case that was concealed inside the drawer above it. They say men ‘compartmentalize’? Well, haha, so do women.

  Out of this drawer came my biggest and most loved secret: my ‘black book’. I took it out and held it in my hands, like a sacred object. Out of the drawer came a pen as well. I opened it and flipped though the soft pages.

  13 February

  I finally tried Tinder. Kind of scary how convenient it makes things. Met a 22-year-old kid, says he’s from Lebanon or something. Or somewhere in Asia? Anyway I forgot. His dick was medium sized, but thicker in the middle, like a football. I fucked him in his shower. Note to self: fucking in the shower only seems like a good idea. In real life it’s awkward as hell. We did it standing, and I looked down and I can still see his hairy toes in my mind right now. I was sad to see all the cum going down the drain. Oh well. Six out of ten.

  24 April

  I said I’d suck off two guys at a bar, and the guy who came first would have to buy me a drink. I don’t remember who actually came first, though. Too bad. Ten out of ten.